


My Socks Know What You Did in the Dark

by Lemon_Drizzle



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Language, POV First Person, Pining, Self-Insert, There Is Only One Bed, mom-friend dean, sex-positive talk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-11
Updated: 2018-05-11
Packaged: 2019-05-05 09:12:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14614962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lemon_Drizzle/pseuds/Lemon_Drizzle
Summary: Three times Dean is the mom-friend, and one time he is the wicked,wickedstepmother.





	My Socks Know What You Did in the Dark

It was the end of a long day, the end of a long hunt, and my throat was practically singing for the beer and whiskey waiting for us at the bar in town. I was almost to the car when Dean scowled and pointed back to the motel.

“Get your ass back in your room and grab your scarf, missy,” he ordered.

“You guys aren’t wearing one,” I grumbled.

“Yeah, well, our zippers weren’t broken during the scuffle with the witches this afternoon, were they?”

I stuck out my tongue at him. It didn’t help my case that I caught more than a few snowflakes because of it.

“Seriously, your colds last forever, Y/N. If we find a new case right away, your coughing during our next stakeout will ruin the element of surprise.” He crossed his arms. “You’re not getting into Baby until you go get a scarf.”

“I could just walk to the bar,” I pointed out.

“Then you’d definitely get sick,” he shot back. “And I’d have to make you a big ol’ pot of my chicken soup when we get home,” he warned.

“Ech!” I grimaced. Resembling soup only in the loosest sense of the word, Dean’s cure-all concoction contained no chicken that I could ever taste, but it was indeed _fowl_. “Sometimes I think that stuff is _why_ my colds always last forever.”

“Hey, my secret recipe is why they don’t last longer,” he defended.

“Sure, Dean.”

I turned and pouted at Sam at the passenger door. Normally, I refrained from pitting one brother against the other, but Dean was being ridiculous. We were spending more time out in the snow arguing than it would have normally taken me to walk to the car, and from the car into the bar, and back the way we came when the night was done.

Sam smiled apologetically and shrugged. “Better safe than sorry, huh?”

“Oh, all right.” I spun on my toes and stalked back to my room.

In addition to craving a beer, I couldn’t resist Sam’s puppy eyes. Thank goodness a Hunter’s life was built around deception and lies, because I had been hiding my inconvenient feelings for the younger Winchester almost since joining the Dynamic Duo a few years ago. But sometimes I imagined running my fingers through his hair and peppering his forehead with soft kisses, and other times I imagined him pinning me against a wall and—

I dropped my key card trying to fit it in the lock, and swore at myself to get it together. When I finally got the door open, I swiped my scarf from the table and muttered curses to myself all the way to the car.

I needed a drink.

*****

I was finishing my third bottle at the end of the bar, watching Sam at a dart board with a group of college kids, when a young man with short dark hair and a Led Zeppelin tee came over with a shot of whiskey in each hand.

“Your friend over there said you could use some of this,” he said with a smile, setting the glasses on the stained and gouged wood in front of me.

“My friend over...where?” I asked, scanning the crowded room without taking my eyes off of him. I was sure we had destroyed the entire coven that afternoon, but sometimes there were reinforcements and retribution. When was the situation secure? On the drive home.

“The tough-looking guy in the green jacket.”

He pointed to a table in the corner, and I saw Dean, already staring at me with a giant grin. He mouthed, “He’s single,” before turning back to the woman on his lap. She had a very long ponytail and very tight jeans.

“Uh-huh,” I mumbled to myself, mentally planning how I was going to rip my friend, my buddy, my pal a new one.

“So, I’ve never seen you guys in here before,” the stranger said. “Just passing through?”

“Yep.” I picked up the nearest shot and slammed it back, putting the empty glass upside-down on the bar.

“I’m Jared, by the way,” he told me, leaning close on his elbows.

“Nice to meet you, Jared.” I grabbed the second glass and drank it down in one go too, setting it down next to its mate. “Thanks for the drinks. Excuse me.”

I patted his arm with a conciliatory brusqueness and crossed the room toward the two lovebirds.

Dean saw me approach and said something into the young woman’s ear. She nodded and extricated herself from his arms in order to get up and go check out the jukebox.

“What’s the matter?” he asked. “Is he a creep? I thought he seemed nice enough. And I’d like to think I’m a pretty good judge of character.”

“Liking Led Zeppelin is not a litmus test for a person’s character, Dean-o,” I informed him. “Shitty people happen to good music all the time. That douchebag congressman from Wisconsin, whose face was made for punching—he says his favorite band is Rage Against the Machine.”

“How dare he!” Dean gasped, actually clutching his chest. “Does he even listen to the lyrics?”

“I know.”

“Hey, don’t change the subject,” he realized, crossing his arms. “You just blew that guy off. What was wrong with him?”

“Dude, no offense, but fuck off,” I said through clenched teeth. “I don’t need a wing-man.”

“You need _something_ ,” he told me pointedly. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed how on edge you’ve been around the bunker, like a hair trigger ready to pop.”

My heart stuttered as I wondered, since Dean had noticed how I was acting, if Sam could tell that something was off as well. And if they both did, what they thought it could be. Dean had surmised sex, of course—or the lack thereof. What did Sam think? Had Dean told him his own theory? Were they talking about me—about my sex life—behind my back?

I grabbed a beer bottle from the table and downed the rest of it.

“That was mostly backwash, by the way,” he mentioned.

“Fuck you,” I hissed.

“You’re not my type. You scared off my type,” he pouted.

He waved at a waitress for more beer, and I plopped down across from him in another chair.

“What is your type, Y/N?” he wondered, spreading his arms wide. “Bet I could find you a nice guy here tonight. And I don’t mean a _nice guy_. I mean a proper nice guy.”

“I don’t want a nice guy,” I muttered.

“Oh, you don’t, huh?” he smirked. “Well, why didn’t you just say so? So your tastes run a little rougher. There are plenty of guys here who I’m sure could show you a good time.”

“That’s not what I meant,” I said tightly, cut off by the waitress bringing over our drinks.

Dean beckoned her down to say something softly into her ear, and she straightened up with a small smile.

“You got it,” she said, glancing at me.

“Thank you so much, sweetheart,” he grinned as she walked away. Then he turned back to me. “So, you don’t want a nice guy, you don’t want a tough guy.” He leaned across the table. “Do you...do you want a nice gal? Because with the amount of people in here, I think your odds are good of finding—”

“I want you to shut up, is what I want!” I exclaimed, loud enough that he knew I was serious, quiet enough not to attract the attention from the tables around us. “I don’t need to get laid, roughly or otherwise!”

“Yeah, honey, I think you do,” he said gently. “How long has it been? I’ve met some of your exes. I can guess what it took to keep you satisfied. And, hey, relationships are hard. But relationships with other Hunters? That’s almost impossible. They burn bright, and they burn fast, because the next day could be their last.”

“Get Willie Nelson over here a guitar,” I grumbled.

“What I’m saying is, sometimes short-lived physical connections are just easier, and that’s perfectly okay.”

“For the love of Chuck, please stop talking,” I groaned.

“I don’t know why you’re being such a prude,” he remarked. “You comment on my... _dalliances_ all the time. You were my wing-ma’am the night with the doctor in Albuquerque. And the next night with her sister the teacher.” He smiled to himself, reminiscing. “That was a good trip.”

“An elementary school almost burned down, Dean,” I recalled.

“Uh, yeah, _almost_ ,” he repeated.

“And there were vampires.”

“And we killed them all. Win-win.”

I rolled my eyes and took a long swallow of beer. The waitress came back with a plate of food on each arm and laid them out in front of us.

“Thanks,” I said automatically, appreciating the look of the burger and fries, even though I didn’t really feel like eating.

“Thanks, darling,” Dean said.

“You two need anything else?” she asked sweetly. “All good on your beers?”

“For now, thanks,” he dismissed kindly.

“All right, let me know.”

When she had gone, Dean tucked into his food with a shockingly tidy voraciousness. He looked up at me after a minute, noticed I hadn’t moved, and leaned back in his chair, wiping his mouth with a paper napkin.

“Eat up,” he directed. “I know you haven’t had anything but coffee and alcohol since this morning.”

“I’m not hungry,” I said even as my stomach growled. But Dean probably couldn’t have heard it over the music and talking.

“Come on, you need your meat and potatoes, if you want to grow up big and strong.”

“I could kick your ass,” I told him, digging into my juicy burger nonetheless.

“Maybe later,” he shrugged, biting the ends off of the clump of fries in his hand. “Right now, let’s get back to the fact that, as far as I can tell, you used to have no problems with your sexuality, but ever since you moved in with me and Sam, it’s like you’re not...letting yourself feel that stuff.”

“Just because I don’t show it,” I said slowly, “doesn’t mean I don’t feel it.”

“But why _not_ show it, then?” he wanted to know, eating the rest of the fries in his hand and thinking as he chewed. “What have you got to hide from us? Unless...”

I ate with a renewed interest in my food in a bad attempt at nonchalance. He choked when he must have figured it out.

“ _Sam_!?” he whispered loudly, and my eyes went wide.

“Shut up,” I said with my mouth half-full. “Shut up, shut up, shut up.”

“ _Sam_!?” he said again.

I put down the remaining third of my burger and threw one of my fries at him. It got him right in the middle of his forehead.

“Hey, you could’ve hit me in the eye!”

“I wasn’t aiming for your eye,” I told him. “Yet.”

“All right, all right.” He held up his hands. “I won’t say anything. But _Sam_?”

I grabbed another fry, and he held his hands in front of his face. I dipped the fry in ketchup and folded it into my mouth, never taking my eyes off him.

We ate the rest of our dinner in silence, and after the waitress had come over with more beers and taken our dishes away, Dean burped, then I burped louder.

“Show-off,” he mumbled.

I smirked and sipped my drink.

“You should go for it, you know,” he brought up, and a muscle twitched in my jaw.

“I may be out of fries, Winchester, but think about what I could do with this here candle holder.”

“I’m serious, Y/N.”

“So am I.”

He didn’t look afraid, though. “No, really. I know you. And I know my brother. I don’t know how he feels, but I think you should give it a shot.”

“I’m gonna give _you_ a shot,” I said venomously. “Right in the chin.”

“Will you stop being so defensive and just listen?” he sighed. “I meant what I said, about flings being the way to go, for those with such...inclinations. But Sam hasn’t...” He gestured something indecipherable with his hands. “Sam hasn’t shown any interest in casual things since about the time you came to stay with us either.”

“That doesn’t mean shit,” I said. “We both know the hell he’s been through in that department, literally and figuratively.”

“Yeah.” He played with a loose corner of the label on his bottle. “But he might be...saving himself...for...”

“I really don’t want to talk about this, Dean.”

“Okay, then. A little less conversation, a little more action.” He looked over my shoulder. “Heads up.”

“This round’s on me,” Sam said from behind me, placing three bottles around the table for us and sinking into an empty chair in the corner.

“Clean ‘em out?” Dean asked proudly, taking a swig from his new bottle.

“Close enough,” Sam replied, winking at me.

I smiled sheepishly and drank from my unfinished beer. “Attaboy.”

“You eat?” Dean checked.

“Pizza. Good. Had a lot of spinach.”

Dean nodded once and stood up, knocking into the table hard enough to topple the full bottle in front of me. The cold, wet contents upended over the table and right into my lap.

“Sonofabitch!” I scrambled to my feet, breath heaving, shuddering with discomfort at the way my jeans were already clinging to my skin, and a fearful kind of rage that Dean now held a secret over me. I trusted him not to tell Sam, but it was the fear of it all, the fear of it ever coming out, of Sam ever knowing. Of him ever having to tell me that he didn’t feel the same.

“Oops,” Dean muttered.

“ _Oops_? _Oops_!?”

“Calm down, Y/N, it was an accident,” Sam said, wrapping an arm around my shoulders. “Come on, let’s get you back to the motel, and you can have yourself a nice, hot shower.”

“Yeah,” I agreed, relaxing some at his close comfort. “Yeah.” I set down the empty bottle I had had a chance to drink, and Sam helped me into my coat. I shook the scarf out of the end of my sleeve and scoffed. “Can’t forget my scarf, can I? Might catch a cold. Might fall deathly ill. Might have to drink that chicken-based poison.”

“Dick,” Dean chuckled.

“Twat,” I shot back.

“Oh, boy,” Sam sighed. “What did I miss?”

“Nothing,” I said quickly, shooting a warning glance at Dean. “Just tired. And _wet_. Let’s go. Dean, tip the waitress.”

*****

As I stood under the hot spray of the shower, letting the forceful stream of water hit me at the top of my forehead, I could have sworn that I heard the bathroom door open. Or rather, I felt it open, that brief flutter of the shower curtain from a draft, and a slight change to the overall temperature of the room as steam escaped.

“Hello? Dean? Is that you, you asshole?”

I peeled back the shower curtain, but the small room was as empty and as steamy as before. The door was closed. Even though I usually had my own room on hunts, I always showered with the bathroom door closed. Except when the motels didn’t have doors to the bathroom, just walls and a wide open doorway. Whose idea was that?

“Asshole,” I grumbled, even if no one had come in.

Dean was a bona fide asshole. Treating me like a child, with the scarf and dinner. And treating me like the grown woman I was, but getting way too personal, trying to set me up and then talking so openly about my sex life. He had some nerve.

And he was going to get his but good. A prank, maybe, or royally kicking his ass at the shooting range. A warning that, even though, in a moment of vulnerability, he had learned my deepest, darkest secret, I would end him, if he breathed so much as a word of it to another soul.

There was only one towel hanging on the rack, so I used it to dry my hair as best as I could first and then wrapped it around myself before opening the door and letting all the warm air out. I shivered as I walked over to my bag on the chair by the door.

But my bag was not on the chair, I realized before I had taken more than a few steps. And it was not on the floor. I looked into the open closet, even though I only kept my suit and its garment bag in there, but the only thing I saw was the ironing board. My duffel wasn’t there, and neither was the garment bag. My coat and scarf were missing too.

I looked toward the beds, a wary sort of readiness washing over me as I realized that both beds had been stripped clean. Not even the fitted sheets remained around the stained— _eww_ —mattresses. Even the pillowcases were gone. There was only a blank piece of paper in the middle of the bed I had used for the duration of the trip.

I grabbed my gun from the nightstand and went back into the bathroom to dress in my soiled clothes and figure out what the hell was going on, stopping short when I didn’t see the pile I had dropped them into before my shower.

I went back into the bedroom, starting to feel the effects of the cold outside, a faulty heater, and a damp towel. I picked up the piece of paper and turned it over, the chill immediately subsiding as I was consumed with a burning anger hot enough to outshine the sun.

 _Go get him, tiger_ , the note read, in Dean’s blocky handwriting.

I crumpled the paper and tossed it away. I was going to kill him. And when he came back from it, I was going to kill him again. And again. And again.

I stalked over to the door between our rooms and pounded on it without rest, almost falling forward when it was thrown open by Sam, holding his own gun at his side.

“Y/N! What—? Why—? Woah! You’re in a towel.” He turned his eyes up to the ceiling and stepped aside to let me in. “What’s going on? What’s wrong?”

“I know you love your brother, Sam,” I told him, holding my arms across my chest as I tried not to think about the fact that I was standing in front of the man I secretly loved while wearing only a thin towel that left very little to the imagination. “I’ll admit, he has his moments. But now he has to die. Where is he?”

“Doing laundry,” he said simply, gesturing to one empty bed. The other still had all of its bedclothes. “We’re leaving in the morning anyway, but he said he couldn’t spend one more night in the middle of a week’s worth of sweat, and skin cells, and general scuzz. Took all his clothes with him too. Weirdo.” He looked into my room so that he didn’t have to look at me. “Oh, he got you too, huh?”

“Oh, he got me, all right!” I spat out. “He stole all my clothes too. Even the stuff with the beer on it. Even my coat. I have nothing to wear except for this fucking towel!”

“Oh. Uh...” He rubbed the back of his neck and set his gun on the table. “Well, you can borrow some of mine until he gets back.”

The thought of wearing Sam’s clothes, smelling him all around me, would have normally made me all warm and bubbly inside, but not if he felt trapped into making the offer. Now it only filled me with a dreary emptiness. Dean had even ruined that.

Sam noticed my hesitation and blushed. “Or maybe I can just go find him before he starts a load.”

He probably wasn’t even doing laundry, I thought to myself. He was probably hiding in his car, giggling under a pile of blankets and clothes, thinking he was so smart.

“No, it’s all right,” I told him quietly, dropping my gun on the empty bed. “Um, some pajamas would be great, thanks. Please.”

“No problem.” He pulled a clean long-sleeved tee, flannel pants, and long socks out of his bag and held them out to me in one hand.

I couldn’t avoid touching him as I took them from him, our skin sliding briefly along each other’s, his warmth against my cold, his soft and dry against my sticky dampness. If my heart had any room for humiliation, I would have felt it more, but I was too preoccupied with how much I hated Dean at that moment.

“Thanks.”

“What are you going to do about blankets?” he asked. “I’ll give you my comforter.”

“And leave you with just the sheet? No way.”

“Eh, I have my coat.” He shrugged. “Come on, you don’t even have that. And weren’t you telling us yesterday that your heater’s busted or something? Now you’re really going to catch a cold.” He chuckled to himself. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say Dean planned all this just to prove his chicken soup actually worked.”

He definitely planned it, all right, just not with that ulterior motive in mind. But I kept my mouth shut.

“The logical solution is that we share the bed,” he said, and I swallowed hard. He met my eye and quirked a brow. “Do you...trust me?”

Him? With my life, easily. Myself? Oh, Chuck help us all.

“Yeah,” I sighed helplessly.

He flashed a crooked smile, then turned away with another blush. “Well, then, uh...you go get dressed. And if you’re ready for bed, then we’ll just—we’ll just go to bed.”

“Okay. Back in a minute.”

I couldn’t even brush my teeth, because all that stuff was in my duffel bag. I gargled some water and hoped that the smell of burgers and beer wasn’t as strong as I imagined.

Sam was in bed, eyes open but very interested in the stucco ceiling. He had moved my gun from Dean’s bed to the nightstand. He didn’t have a table on his side, so his must have been on the floor. Not that we really expected a midnight ambush. But when was the situation secure? On the drive home.

I closed the door separating our rooms to hold in the little bit of warmth from their own weak heater, and dragged my feet across to him. I was sharing a bed with an incredible human being. It should have been a dream come true. Instead, it was a waking nightmare.

I crawled beneath the blankets, the space already warm from his body heat. In another time, another life, I would have kept scooting, right into his waiting arms, and no amount of supernatural creatures, or winter weather, or older-brother antics could have inconvenienced us.

But that was not my life.

I rolled onto my side away from him, clicked off the light, and closed my eyes before the tears could leak out, muttering a soft, “Goodnight, Sam.”

“Goodnight, Y/N. Sleep tight. Don’t let the sweat, skin cells, and scuzz bite.”

I huffed out a small laugh. “Okay.”

After a few moments’ silence, Sam wondered, “Where’s Dean going to sleep? Your room? ‘Cuz if he tries to make his bed in here in the middle of the night, I’m gonna throw my shoe at him.”

“Dean can have a slumber party with Crowley in Hell, for all I care,” I said.

“What happened tonight?” he asked. “I mean, you’ve wanted to kill him before, but this time, I get the feeling you’d actually go through with it.”

“I don’t want to talk about it, Sam,” I said tightly.

“Oh. Sorry.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“Is there anything I can do?”

“No.”

“I could hold him down for you,” he offered.

I chuckled quietly. “That won’t be necessary, but thanks. This is something I gotta deal with on my own. I’ve been doing just fine dealing with it on my own for a while now.”

“But you’re not on your own, Y/N,” he told me. “You have Dean, until you kill him anyway. And—and you have me.”

I squeezed my eyes shut, but one of those blasted tears escaped and rolled down my face to the pillow.

“I can’t tell you what it...means to me— _us_ —the both of us—since you’ve moved into the bunker,” he went on. “Dean and I are already family, but with you around, it—it’s finally started to _feel_ like it. You make us stronger. You make us...better.”

I covered my mouth to keep back a sob, holding my ragged breath, willing my heart to stop trying to beat right out of my chest.

“Anyway, sometimes Dean can go too far. Believe me, I’ve been there. But it’s because he loves you.” He let out a deep breath. “I love you too, Y/N.”

I couldn’t open my mouth, for fear of what might have come out, and he must have thought I had fallen asleep, because he didn’t say anything else.

We lay there together for a long time, but I could tell from his breathing that he was still awake.

The urge to cry, to scream, slowly passed, and I thought about what it was going to be like, going on like this, hiding how I really felt, lying to myself about what I wanted, what I needed. Catching Dean’s eye from now on and seeing the same pity from him that I got from my own reflection. His future attempts and plots to get me to confess my feelings to Sam, to face the rejection, to own up to it and accept it. To get over it and move on, become something more, something able to survive without such consummate love.

Emboldened by the dark, I wiped my eyes and cleared my throat. “I know why Dean stole the blankets and my clothes.”

“He’s not a secret germophobe?” Sam figured.

“No.”

“Nothing to do with his chicken soup either?”

“Nothing.”

“Okay, then, why?”

“Because I love you,” I admitted, and though I did feel a weight leave my chest and shoulders, its heaviness had long provided a familiarity I wasn’t quite comfortable losing. Before he could say anything, I had to get it all out. “I’ve loved you almost since the first time I met you. It started out as a simple crush, one Hunter admiring the skills of another. After I moved in, it only got stronger. You weren’t just a Hunter, you weren’t just a Winchester. You’re Sam. You sneak vegetables into dinner, and you laugh at my dumb jokes, and you protect this world and its people with no thanks, no reward. But you keep going, you keep trying. You keep fighting.”

He shuffled behind me, but I wasn’t done.

“You’re so brave. So smart. So vulnerable. I fell hard, man.” I released a heavy breath. “I know it can’t ever work between us, because we’re not made that way, and our life expectancies sure as shit don’t help. But at least having it out in the open now...will get Dean off my back.”

“Good.”

Before I could ask what he meant by that, I felt his heat as he spooned up to my back and wrapped an arm around me.

“Because that’s where I would like to be.”

“What?” I breathed, holding his arm to my chest, not letting myself believe that it was really there, that he was really there, that he was really saying these words.

“When I said I love you...I was going to let you think it was the same way Dean does. But...” He pulled me closer against himself. “It’s the same way you do.”

“Really?”

“Really really,” he said into my hair.

“You think we can work?” I asked.

“I think we can try,” he replied. “You said yourself, I keep fighting. We both do. That’s what I love about you too.”

He nuzzled at my neck, getting comfortable, and I kissed his hand, the nerve endings on my lips dancing with incomparable delight at the sensation of his soft skin. I let out a small sound of contentment and relaxed in his arms.

But a moment later, my eyes snapped open. Sam felt me tense.

“What’s wrong, Y/N?”

“Dean is never going to let this go. He’s going to have that stupid grin on his face forever, because he was right about telling you the truth.” I groaned. “I am going to have to kill him. For real.”

“And I’ll even hold him down for you,” Sam said again. “Tomorrow. Right now, sleep.”

“Deal,” I agreed, sinking back against him and into a deep slumber, comforted by his warmth, his love, and his very fuzzy socks.


End file.
